Govt has shelved Shagun, pension, SC scholarship schemes: Badal

CHANDIGARH: Former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday accused the Congress government of shelving development and welfare schemes. In a press statement, Badal said he was deeply anguished to learn that no pension had been paid to 20 lakh of aged population, the disabled and the widows since the formation of the new government, nearly nine months ago.

“It is a great betrayal as the Congress had promised a threefold jump in the pension amount from ₹500 during the SADBJP tenure to ₹1,500. Later, they hiked it to only ₹750. Now, they are not even paying that. The government is sitting on ₹1,000 crore that actually belongs to the hapless pensioners. Likewise, the Congress had promised to raise the Shagun amount to ₹51,000 from ₹15,000 being paid by the SAD-BJP government. Yet, the government is sitting on ₹100 crore which should actually have been paid to the eligible families,” he said.

Badal went on to allege that SC students are not being paid their scholarship, despite the fact that the government has received ₹115 crore from the Centre.

“The state government is cooking up excuses like audit to withhold payment of scholarships. So far, the audit of only 200 out of 4,000 institutions, where students have to be paid scholarships, has been done. This gives the impression that the govt is deliberately going slow on the process in order to sit on the funds meant for SC students,” he added.